Dr. Mark Reynolds obtained his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Grinnell College as a Charles White Scholar. He obtained his PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a NIH Biophysics Fellow. He completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Minnesota prior to becoming a faculty member at Saint Joseph’s University. He has been a visiting researcher at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.
The Philadelphia section of the American Chemical Society recently honored Mark with the 2022 “Excellence in College Teaching Award” in recognition of distinguished teaching, mentorship, and scholarly activities in the chemical sciences. Mark has successfully mentored over 60 undergraduate students in his research lab and has co-authored the American Chemical Society’s Biochemistry national exam. He recently served as a pro bono consultant for the international company CORTEVA Agriscience™ on the preparation and storage of COVID-19 tests in the early stages of the pandemic, a project that has been highlighted in the Des Moines Register and other media.
At Saint Joseph’s, Mark helped to develop the Chemical Biology Program, growing it from 15 to approximately 60 majors. He currently serves as Director of the University’s Office of Fellowships, mentoring students through the application process for national fellowships and helping them obtain multiple Fulbright, Barry M. Goldwater, and NSF graduate research fellowships and scholarships, among others. Because of our fellowships success. He has been active in faculty governance, the Institutional Review Board, and the Health Professions Advisory Committee.
Mark regularly participates in science outreach activities at area schools. He appeared as a guest on National Public Radio to speak about his work in co-creating a new nutrition education component to the 4th grade curriculum at Gompers Elementary School as part of a project to fight obesity in urban youth.
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- BA Grinnell College (1993)
- PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison (1999)
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Mark’s research is in the field of inorganic biochemistry, the study of the structure and function of metal ions in biological systems. Mark studies the heme-based gas sensing proteins, which sense NO, CO and O2 and regulate important processes such as blood pressure and neurotransmission, an area in which he has been a pioneer. He and his students study the oxygen sensing mechanism of the heme protein FixL that regulates nitrogen fixation in alfalfa and soybean, which is important for agriculture. His research group also helped to discover the first heme-responsive ion channel, human Slo BK channels, in collaboration with Dr. Toshi Hoshi’s lab at the U. of Pennsylvania, which are crucial in blood pressure regulation, etc. A more recent project focuses on the bioremediation of industrial dye pollutants using heme proteins as green catalysts.
Mark has presented and published research from his lab widely in journals such as Nature, Accounts of Chemical Research and Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics. He is the co-editor of a new research collection from CRC press, Taylor and Francis Group. Mark’s research at SJU has been funded by grants from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, the Research Corporation, Merck, Inc., the National Institutes for Health, and the National Science Foundation. His research has been highlighted twice in the American Chemical Society journal Chemical and Engineering News, and featured in Science Daily Highlights, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) Eureka Research Highlights.
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Select Publications
Saint Joseph’s University undergraduate students are indicated by*
- Reynolds, M. F., Rao, U. Pogash, S.*, Saul, A.*, Barr, G.*, Ortiz de Montellano, E.*, Falgie, B.*, Stefanic, I.*, Barry, D.* The Role of Horse Hemoglobin and Horse Heart Myoglobin as Green Catalysts in the Bioremediation of Four Classes of Industrial Textile Dyes, Biocatalysis and Biotransformation, 2024, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10242422.2024.2405047
- Reynolds, M. F. New Insights into the O2 Sensing Mechanism of FixL and other Biological Heme-Based Gas Sensor Proteins, J. Inorg. Biochem, 2024, Volume 2592, 112642, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2024.112642
- Mokdad, A., Ang, E.*, Desciak, M.*, Ott, C.*, Vilbert, A.*, Beddow, O.*, Butuc, A.*, Larsen, R. W., Reynolds, M. F. Photoacoustic Calorimetry Studies of O2-Sensing FixL and (R200, I209) Variants from Sinorhizobium meliloti Reveal Conformational Changes Coupled to Ligand Photodissociation from the Heme-PAS Domain Biochemistry, 2024, 63 (1), 116-127. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biochem.3c00438
- Reynolds, M. F., Barry*, D., Pogash*, S. Making Heme Proteins Green: Designing Enzymes for Bioremediation and Environmental Sustainability, Go Green for Environmental Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Theory and Practice, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Publishing Group, July 13, 2021. pp. 2-14
- Savarimuthu, U. Rao, M. F. Reynolds, co-editors, Go Green for Environmental Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Theory and Practice, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, July 13, 2021, pages 1-276
- Farquhar, E. R.; Emerson, J. P. ; Koehntop, K. D.; Reynolds, M. F.; Trmčić. M.; Lawrence, Que, L., Jr. In Vivo Self-Hydroxylation of an Fe-Substituted Manganese Dependent Extradiol Dioxygenase, Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry 2011, 16, 589-596. DOI: 10.1007/s00775-011-0760-4
- Reynolds, M. F., Ackley*, L., Blizman*, A., Lutz*, Z., Manoff*, D. R., Miles*, M., Pace*, M., Patterson*, J., Pozzessere*, N., Saia*, K., Sato*, R., Smith*, D., Tarves*, P., Weaver*, M., Sieg, K., Lukat-Rodgers, G. S., Rodgers, K. R. Role of Conserved Fa-helix Residues in the Native Fold and Stability of the Kinase-Inhibited Oxy State of the Oxygen-sensing FixL Protein from Sinorhizobium meliloti. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 2009, 485, 150-159. DOI: 10.1016/j.abb.2009.02.011
- Hou, S., Reynolds, M. F., Horrigan, F., Heinemann, S. H., Hoshi, T. Reversible binding of heme to proteins in cellular signal transduction. Accounts of Chemical Research 2006, 39, 918-924. DOI: 10.1021/ar040020w
- Emerson, J. P., Wagner, M. L., Reynolds, M. F., Que, L., Jr., Sadowsky, M. J., Wacket, L. P. The Role of Histidine 200 in MndD, the Mn(II)-Dependent 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetate 2,3-dioxygenase from Arthrobacter globiformis CM-2, a site-directed mutagenesis study. Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry 2005, 10, 751-760. DOI: 10.1007/s00775-005-0017-1
- Tang, D. X., Xu, R., Reynolds, M. F., Garcia, M. L., Heinemann, S. H., Hoshi, T. Haem Can Bind to and Inhibit Mammalian Calcium-Dependent Slo1 BK Channels. Nature 2003, 425, 531-534. DOI: 10.1038/nature02003
- Reynolds, M. F., Costas, M., Ito, M., Jo, D-H., Tipton, A. A., Whiting, A. K., L. Que, L., Jr. 4-Nitrocatechol as a Probe of a Mn(II)-Dependent Extradiol-Cleaving Catechol Dioxygenase (MndD). A Comparison with Relevant Fe(II) and Mn(II) Model Complexes. Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry 2003, 8, 263-272. DOI: 10.1007/s00775-002-0411-x
- Carr, H. S, Tran, D., Reynolds, M. F., Burstyn, J. N., Spiro, T. G. Activation of Soluble Guanylyl Cyclase by Four-Coordinate Metalloporphyrins: Evidence for a Role for Porphyrin Conformation. Biochemistry 2002, 41, 10149-10157. DOI: 10.1021/bi010777k